HDTV from Aircraft

Posted by
Sam Churchill
on
September 25th, 2006

This Saturday I awoke to the sound of a helicopter with a huge camera mount hanging off its snout. It was Pictorvision movie mount. Wescam created the the gyro-stabilized industry in 1969 and sold it to military contractor L3 a few years back. Now Wescam does wireless video for the military while Pictorvision concentrates on the film industry.

It got me wondering about wireless HDTV from helicopters and UAVs. Digital Content Producer’s HD ENG Takes Flight and Cutting the Cord provide a brief overview on the state of the art.

WNYW FOX5 was the first station in the New York City market to offer airborne HD breaking news coverage. WNYW, KUSA in Denver and KABC in Los Angeles are now using helicopters equipped with the Cineflex HiDef HD system.

The Cineflex V14 Magnum LE was the first gyro-stabilized, aerial camera system to combine a 1920 x 1080 high definition camera with an infrared sensor in a single package.

The 1080i, 30 frames per second video is downlinking with the GMS solution that includes a 6-antenna diversity “Messenger Smart Receiver” (MSR) and an optional “Messenger Antenna Array” (MAA) for exceptional long-distance omni-directional coverage (with a range of up to 80 miles). Here’s a WM9 video from Global Microwave Systems’ website.

VeraTech Aero “Phantom Sentinel” is thrown like a boomarang. The single blade rotorcraft has the ability to deliver close up, real time video intelligence within 75 feet of nearly any event and remain virtually undetectable to the human eye. Microsoft’s Photosynth might combine images into a 3D panorama.

Of course autonomous airplanes (below) may make more sense for some applications — they’re generally faster, cheaper and use less gas. UAVs will soon be drafted for border patrol in the United States.

The system can receive and display video, data, and annotated maps improving the field commander’s situational understanding and decision making process. Video data is received with geo-location information. It uses both analog L and C bands as well ad digital C band data-links.

Insitu’s SeaScan is designed for commercial UAV applications which includes shipboard imaging reconnaissance, corporate security on land or at sea, and other commercial missions. A digital video camera is integrated into an inertially-stabilized pan / tilt nose turret. It uses 2.4 GHz video & 900 MHz for command/telemetry using commercial off the shelf gear (COTS).

Equipped with Lidar, 3D collaboration might even be possible using SGI’s OpenGL Vizserver that enables the interactive sharing of large 3D models.